


Conditioned Behaviour

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV), Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Multi, Spoilers for 4:16
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:35:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1399873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A quick and dirty collection of short stories, some slash, gen, and anything in between.</p><p>Chapter one: A moment between Rick and Daryl, around 4:16, spoilers for the episode, also dubious acts.<br/>Chapter two: 4:16 from a different point of view<br/>Chapter three: Trinity  (shallow smut)<br/>Chapter four: 3:10 snippet from tumblr   (new)<br/>Chapter five: Rickyl drabble - background Beth  <br/>Chapter six: Rick, Shane, and Daryl AU - or that one time Rick wasn't in a coma at the start of the epidemic</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Conditioned behaviour.”  

Her voice has a New York twang.  It carries clear over the sounds of the highway, of eighteen-wheeler trucks screaming by.  Daryl feels the sun on his stomach, boots scuffing against asphalt as he lies on the trolley, half of his body buried under a Chevy and grease on his nails.  It’s stinking hot, the type of heat that blankets everything and makes it slippery wet, like stepping out of a shower with no towel in sight.  From this angle, Daryl can’t see anything but her thighs, a long stretch of road dressed in tight shorts.  She’ll be nineteen or twenty-one, Daryl estimates, another too rich, silver-spoon, _stuck up_ kid on her way to Florida, ready to celebrate Spring Break.

“A child is exposed to a significant event in the developmental years – let’s say paedophilia or physical abuse - repeated exposure becomes the normal, accepted, state of existence, the child grows up to become an adult and perpetrates the same crime against their _own_ child.  It’s simple maths, Mary, one plus one always equals two. History repeats itself.”

Daryl stays clothed for the most part, favouring singlets or the leather vest, what accounts to ‘nice’ clothing for Daryl is a simple white v-neck and if he managed to keep it clean then that counted as ‘dressed up’.   He’s not in the habit of working in the garage shirtless, but he was down to one shirt and it’s mother-fucking hot out there, sides that, Daryl’s _under_ the car. He pauses with the wrench in his hand, blinking sweat from his eyes.  He can feel the moment when the girl ambles by, accompanied by two others, their shadows wavering over his lower body as they head toward their own vehicle.  They have ICEEs in their hand, paper takeaway bags trailing the smell of cheap, roadside burgers.

“Well, _I_ thought he was cute.”

“Girlfriend, you saw his back when he went under the car, trust me when I say, you _don’t_ want that man anywhere near your kids….”

“Bitch, I’m not _old_ enough to have kids.”

“Hypothetical kids then, jeeesus…”

Daryl pitches his gaze across the asphalt, tracks their feet as they walk away, a parade of sneakers in orange, red, and blue. The heat is simmering in waves, a distorted mirage, her voice fades, and Daryl thinks he’s heard that particular tone everyday of his life.  With a grunt, he goes back to work.

 

 

 

When Daryl was fifteen, he was expelled from Caverden High for stealing - the same crime Merle committed five years previous. Merle did it; of course, beat that school-kid until he was a bloody smear on the ground, hopping from foot to foot like a demented crow.  Five years later, no one asks if Daryl did it, they assume, everyone in town knows the Dixon clan, in-bred rednecks with a yen for liquid gold and violence.  Daryl’s expelled for one week after stealing fifty dollars from Ms. Knightley’s purse, and after that, he never bothers to return.

No one expected him to graduate high school anyway.

The thing is, Daryl’s not in the habit of explaining himself, not when he was ten, fifteen, or any age thereafter, there’s a certain way people used to look at him, a certain tone, and Daryl owed those people _nothing_.  It is what it is, that underlying assumption, insidious, curling around his heart, venomous as a snake.

History, they say, repeats itself, feeding on its own tail for eternity, just look at any defence lawyer in the world gone by.   _I didn’t mean to hit my wife, but my daddy hit me when I was a kid you see._ Pointing the finger elsewhere is everyone’s favourite pastime.

Daryl’s never explained himself to anybody: his or her - _their_ \- assumptions slip over him, he feels _none_ of it.  If anyone had ever bothered to ask though, he might have said this:  Fucking cowards. Go ahead and point your finger at someone else, say it’s really their fault and not yours. Not me.  Uh-huh.  If _I_ choose to do it, I’ll fucking _own_ it.  I’m not going to raise my hand and shout to the world that I don’t have an independent thought of my own.  I ain’t _sheep_.” 

Daryl never finished high school so maybe his maths is askew, but in his book, one plus one doesn’t always equal two.  But as Joe counts down, voice snide, sharp in the cold air, as Daryl’s gaze rakes over Michonne, Rick, and Carl crouched in the car, barely daring to believe his own eyes, Daryl feels something shift in him. “Hold up,” he calls.  Black terror squeezes around his heart.  He can’t breathe around the constriction. Daryl doesn’t have the luxury to explain it to Rick – why he’s here, the company he keeps - and even if he had the words, he can’t say them in front of Joe.  Daryl thought he was immune to the particular way people used to look at him but he can’t – won’t - abide the same expression coming from Rick. Not after everything they’ve gone through. 

In the background, the kiddie-raper kisses Carl through the window, lips smearing against the glass, the knife held in plain view. The men shift like coyotes, smelling blood, mayhem on the crescent moon. Rick’s face turns black, a thundering rage that’s felt by every person in the clearing. 

Joe, delighted, laughs in Grimes’ face.  “Daryl, you interrupting me at _eight_?”

“Hold up now.”  They’re going to kill all three, Joe doesn’t lie, not about anything, they’re going to tear Rick’s son apart, pin him to the ground like a butterfly.  Daryl can see the shock in Michonne’s wide eyes; he sees the way Carl startles in the car, turning to track his movements as Daryl emerges into the light; he can’t read Rick at all, and maybe that’s most terrifying of all.  “Y’all gonna let these people go.”

Rick doesn’t move, knees on the hard packed earth, both hands up-raised. 

Daryl’s eyes flick toward him then away. His tongue touches his lips like a serpent, trying to taste the air.  “These are good people,” Daryl rasps. He’s not in the habit of explaining himself, but for the first time in his entire life, Daryl is desperate to try. _I’m not like them,_ he wants to say, I _wouldn’t do this to a kid, Rick.  Not anyone’s kid, not a stranger’s, or mine, let alone **yours.** I didn’t know. This is not what I’ve been doing since we went our own ways, you gotta believe me._

Joe straightens, murder clear in his eye.

Daryl can kill one, maybe two, if he’s quick enough - but it’s not enough time to reload the crossbow with a bolt before the gunfire would put him down.  Strange to know he’ll probably die here - begging Joe to take the blood owed Lou from Daryl himself, if only he’d spare Rick and the others - his body the only bargaining chip Daryl has left.  I’m not like them, he wants to say, but Daryl’s always been shitty with words, actions were too often the only recourse available.  He could have stayed in the shadows and let it be – it is what it is this dangerous new world – he could have walked away and be done with it, except Rick is the only man whose opinion _mattered_ and Daryl knows where he wants to be.  He knows whom he wants to stand by. Rick – and whatever home the Sherriff claims as his own – is worth dying for. 

The beating, when it comes, ain’t that much of a surprise, just a little bit of history repeating itself.

 

 

***

 

 

Rick thinks there’s something fundamentally wrong with the scenario. 

He took a belting from the Governor a couple of months ago and came away from the experience looking like the walking dead, lurching down roads, graceful as a fucking zombie, trying to keep apace with Carl. Daryl goes head to head with three guys _hell-bent_ on hurting him, and he strolls across the field the next day with the same loose gait he always had, not a wince, limp, or grimace in sight, as if last night never found a way to touch him.  There’s a cut on his lip, one cheek bruised black, a swelling around one eye, and for all that he’s coiled grace as he stops beside Rick, a water-bottle in one hand and a dirty rag in the other. In comparison, Rick feels like he did ten rounds with Sonny Liston, slumped against the car in defeat after a knockout.  “We should save it for drink,” he protests, when Daryl upends the water.

Daryl snorts and waves the damp rag at him. “You can’t see yourself. _He_ can.”

Pointed enough.  Carl’s still sleeping, and Daryl’s words are enough to motivate Rick to clean up quickly.  His chin is tacky with blood, his mouth still tastes like foul copper.

Daryl drops down beside him, shoulder to shoulder in the dirt.  His presence eases away some of Rick’s exhaustion, helps to wake him up, it makes Rick alert to the uncertain tension in the other man.  Rick was a cop for most of his adult life, and like most kids who were abused in childhood, he thinks Daryl lost his own voice somewhere along the way, had it usurped by other people’s assumptions.  In some ways, Daryl’s only trusting himself to speak now, hesitant to believe someone might listen.  And so Rick does, he listens, without any hint of judgement, basking in the knowledge Daryl’s here with him, the men who threatened to rape his son dealt with and gone.

_You being back with us here, now, that’s everything._

_You’re not Merle **or** your dad, you’re certainly not those men in the clearing. You’re not a segment of history waiting to hit repeat and anyone who made you believe otherwise should be gutted. Stronger_ , Rick wants to soothe, _you’re stronger than any of that_ , and lets his knee bump against Daryl.   Rick had never doubted him, the notion never entered his mind when Daryl entered the clearing last night, only an overwhelming sense of relief, but Daryl needed to say it aloud, have it heard and that’s fine because Rick’s willing to listen, so long as Daryl understands the following.  “You’re my brother,” Rick asserts, without caveat, and tries to imbue that simple sentence with every facet of meaning.

In some fucked up way, Rick thinks the apocalypse stripped everyone to their bare bones, gutted morality, tore away barriers, it laid everything out into the open like a dissected corpse.  This is our hearts.  This is what lies in our blood.  In some strange, fucked up way, Rick thinks the apocalypse was the best thing that ever happened to Daryl Dixon.  He’s not so certain about himself.  If Rick came face to face with that Sherriff, newly awakened from a coma and scared shitless, he’s not certain he’d recognise himself. Wouldn’t know what to say. Don’t trust Shane, maybe, or tear a page from Daryl’s book and say actions speak louder than words, you moron. Rick’s too far removed from that man to relate to him.   

There’s silence for a moment.  Daryl twists his heel in the dirt, voice low. “Hey, what you did last night, anyone would have.”

“No… Not that.”  A soft throat between his teeth, Joe’s rapid-fire pulse before Rick bit down and tore, blood in his mouth and something pulpy, soft, caught between his teeth.  A half-beat where Rick could have swallowed or spat, it didn’t really matter, his actions inhuman as any zombie, feral, ice-cold with the determination that none of Joe’s threat – not Daryl being beaten to death, Michonne or his son raped, Rick being shot in the forehead – none of it would occur.  The Sherriff four years previous would have been horrified. The man of last year, desperate to hang up his gun and start farming, would have been wracked with guilt, today Rick feels oddly reconciled.

Daryl shakes his head quickly and Rick gets the impression he’s trying to comfort - to stall a guilt that would have spiralled Rick into a slump a couple of months ago. “Something happened.  That ain’t you.”

It ain’t Daryl, Rick wants to correct, amused. Daryl still believes in codes, there’ a line he can’t, or won’t, cross.  It’s harder to see than Rick’s, who traditionally been good at voicing his opinion and making it known, but Daryl’s quiet line isn’t written in malleable sand, it’s agate, carved into his skeleton, just under his rib-bones. When Merle was around, he told Rick about Yellow Jacket Bridge, how his kid brother cleared out a nest of walkers to save a Mexican family with a tot.

Ironically when Rick did the maths, forty-eight hours after Daryl saved a family of strangers on an over-run bridge, Rick drove passed a stranger on a highway, a young man screaming for help, and left him to his own short fate.   There are some things Daryl won’t do, abandon a friend, leave a little girl lost in the woods, stand by and watch a mother and child be slaughtered, and personally Rick’s grateful for it.  The differences between them complement each other, never rub wrong. Last night it took everything in Rick not to shout the other man’s name aloud when he stepped into the clearing.

Daryl’s quiet attempt to find an _excuse_ for Rick almost floors him, he’s never fully understood Daryl’s loyalty, his unswerving belief Rick was a good man at heart.  Rick depends on it desperately fiercely, but he doesn’t need any lies between them, not even the soft kind.  Rick did what he had to last night, he doesn’t regret it, not if it means they’re all alive, and he’s going to fucking _own_ it. 

“Daryl, you saw what I did to Tyresse. It ain’t all of it – the violence - but that’s me, that’s why I’m here now, and that’s why Carl is. I’m _going_ to keep him safe, that’s all that matters. “

And Rick’s at ease, reconciled with the thought. He searches Daryl’s face, sees the tension completely ease out of his frame, and squeezes his arm, fingers curling around Daryl’s inner wrist.    He can’t taste the blood anymore, and when he closes his eyes, it’s not Carl sprawled in the dirt, scrabbling wildly to get loose from an adult that Rick sees, it’s a different boy with dirty blond hair, a lanky frame, and already too many scars decorating his back.  “It goes for you too,” he adds, eyes drifting close, half asleep in the sun, he’d do the same thing for any of them.  “All those years ago… I wish someone had done it for you too.”

Daryl pulls loose jerkily, gaze veering away, after a beat, he says harshly. “You wiping the blood off or smearing it around?”

“Give me more water.”

Rick doesn’t touch him, not without telegraphing his intent well in advance.  Daryl slaps the plastic bottle in the palm of his hand then scrambles to his feet, staring off into the middle distance.  Rick watches shrewdly, seeking out injuries, small hurts – wherever those blows landed, regardless of how hard Daryl was kicked – he hides the stiffness well.  Rick never could be bothered with a charade, he cried like a baby when Lori died, curled up on the ground, unaware of anyone else, when he’s physically hurt, Rick doesn’t have the energy to hide it.  Rick can’t tell when Daryl’s seriously hurt, and he doesn’t know if _that’s_ a charade or if it implies Daryl became accustomed to cruelty long ago.  Either way, Rick doesn’t like it.

I ain’t nobodies bitch, Daryl had muttered, and he’s not, not in the way Merle would sing-song, so mockingly.

Honestly, it’s never mattered to Rick – batting or receiving, male/female, there’s nothing shameful about genuine affection – it doesn’t lesson who Rick is, but he can be careful in this, soak up brittle moments of passion and take them as they land, never push too hard (in everything but this), it’s the only act Rick is eternally patient about. Before the Governor busted the prison wide open there were – instances…

Cold nights on an open road with his team blown to the horizon, Rick revisited every single memory, and none of it held a candle to reality.  Daryl never loses his wariness, it’s engrained in him as much as the dirt and walker blood is, but there’s curiosity to his movements, steadfastness, too. Rick’s fallen apart on those fingers, spilled wet and hot onto his own belly.  His muscles have ached with tension, suspended in a perfect arc of pleasure.  He’s bitten his own fist to stay quiet.  He knows the taste of blood and he knows the feel of Daryl, and he wants to nuzzle into the soft throat of the other man and open his mouth wide, feel the pulse of the jugular under his teeth and tongue.  He wants to feel the sensation when Daryl relents, when he tips his throat to Rick in invitation.  He knows the tangle of hair fisted between his fingers, the force of the pivot that will bring Rick to the earth, he knows Daryl’s weight, what he feels like cradled between Rick’s open legs, one ankle hooked as a loose anchor, to keep the other man close.  He knows how Daryl moves in him, how he rocks, so gently sweet.

He wants.

In the past, Rick was careful not to touch unless invited, on the few occasions they’d stumbled together, found animal comfort in each other’s presence, it was Daryl who instigated it and led. Rick blinks rapidly, forcing sunspots from his eyes.   Inside the vehicle, he can hear Michonne stir.  He doesn’t find his feet as gracefully as Daryl, his balance, hearing, has been off kilter since the gunshot exploded beside his head. Daryl steadies him; he catches Rick by the forearm and waits until he finds his feet.  Rick nods in gratitude, he uses the grip to haul the other man close, forehead to forehead and from there it’s easy – warm breath, the sunrise a caress against his spine, lips open and relaxed – it’s a greeting or a confirmation, before it turns a whole lot filthy.

“I missed you,” Daryl says, wrecked. And now, _now_ he looks hurt, pulling back just far enough for Rick to see, bruised by the memory of separation, of circumstances that were null and void.  “I missed you so much.”

In the dull light of morning, with Michonne and Carl still inside the vehicle, it’s an easy thing to manoeuvre them toward the bushes, to find a copse of trees and underbrush clumped together. Clothing is hard, weapons a nightmare and _all_ of it placed within hands reach, boots they don’t even bother about – but the slow hiss Daryl exhales as his shirt is drawn over his head is the only warning Rick receives before he sees the mottled bruises, the colours brilliant, bright as a Monet oil.  Rick slows down, gentles his touch, careful now because this is the only act worth being patient for.  He takes the other man to his knees in the grass; gently, he urges Daryl onto his hands as well.

Normally, Rick would let Daryl fuck him four ways to Sunday, but he wants to supplant one memory with another.  _I want you,_ Rick wants to say, in the muted dialect Daryl speaks, he wants to let his own actions write over the existing calligraphy – his fingers find bruises, clouded against Daryl’s ribcage like thunderstorms, he traces over scars that could have only be left behind by a belt – that twist around Daryl’s back and hips like a serpent.  _I need you,_ Rick inscribes, _I’d never turn you away._ His tongue finds skin, the small of the spine, and the swell of a buttock.  The taste of blood, of pumping artery and torn flesh, is replaced by something far more intimate.  Daryl shudders, a groan drawn from him like slow murder.  Rick soothes a palm across his belly, alternates sly, teasing licks with more muscular action, quick darts that open Daryl up, until he’s helpless under the slick, invading, pressure of it all.

When Rick’s chin is wet with salvia, when his jaw aches, and Daryl is a quivering mess on the end of his tongue, when his sense of time and hearing reasserts itself, the low endless drone of _pleasepleaseplease_ makes itself known.   Daryl doesn’t sound hurt, he sounds mindless, shattered open by Rick’s regard, his dick is drooling pre-cum between his legs, balls drawn painfully, drum-tight, to his body.

Rick eases him upright, until they’re balanced on their knees, spine to torso, one arm looped around Daryl’s hips so Rick can jerk him off more readily.  Sleepy-eyed and watchful, Rick opens his mouth wide, lets his teeth graze against the carotid artery, covering as much skin as possible, until every sense he owns is overwhelmed with Daryl’s scent.  Gentle as a den lion, Rick bites lightly, never marking the skin, and feels Daryl seize in his arms, cock jerking, body gone rigid.  Rick strokes him through it, fingers wet as Daryl keens, a low animal sound Rick would never share with anyone.  They stay like that until Daryl slumps, sticky and wet, his hair a god-awful mess.

“You’re everything,” Rick had told him aloud, he's said it again just now, in the type of dialect Daryl speaks.

 

 


	2. Ring-Leader - Archer - Samurai - Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still playing around in the 4:16 verse, but a different pov this time - spoilers for the ep

Dr. Eugene Porter was a certified genius by the age of six; but he was certified a natural-disaster-zone at the age of four by his momma, or so she claimed. 

He had been researching in a secure environment (hiding) since the outbreak began, officially guarded by Colonel Jessop E Pearl, unofficially, he was babysat by Sergeant Abraham Ford and his chalk, four rangers who shadowed his every move until the orders came down. They left containment with eight men, moving fast on the highways toward Washington DC with what felt like a promising start. It didn’t take long until the notion was disabused.  Instead of eight highly trained rangers protecting his ass, it was down to Ford and the beautiful Rosita.  They hadn’t even made it out of Georgia yet.  In mathematical terms, that’s the type of odds that could give a person pause. Porter wears his mullet with pride, _panache_  he’d like to claim, he speaks in a slow southern drawl just _daring_ people to underestimate him.  Porter’s always loved that moment, the drawn out double-take – he plays up to it, does his best to stretch it out – three years of Dungeons and Dragons before he moved into RPG and he knows how to misdirect.

He can categorise his life into three stages, using only keywords, because time is a matter of essence.

Stage one: Post-doctorate degree.  Skittles.  Dirty dishes.  A hundred and ten ‘friends’ and all of them on the internet.

Stage two: recycled air.  Ford’s hand on his shoulder.  The muted glow of a computer screen powered by generator. Numbers. Numbers. No sleep at all.

Stage three:  Gut-wrenching terror.  Washington DC. Ford.

He liked Glenn and Tara immediately, instinctively, truth is, he likes Maggie and the others as well.  They seem like good people, normal if high-strung, and that’s civilisation right there, represented by the likes of those folks, good, _strong_ people and Porter knows how to save them.  He finds out later it’s only half of the group – the originals, Maggie says fondly, her hand stroking down Glenn’ arm – you haven’t met the originals yet.

He doesn’t meet them by name.  Instead it’s the fucker who has them trapped in a boxcar who describes them, calling out instructions from a distance, his voice sounding loud and clear.

Ringleader.  Archer.  Samurai. Boy.

Like an old D and D game, and somehow, in Porter’s mind, those names stick. 

They’re the originals, Porter assumes - the other half of Glenn’s splintered group - and if Maggie and her kin represent civilisation, Porter could be forgiven for thinking the wild just entered his prison.

There’s been a crawling sensation in the pit of his stomach since Porter realised what his captors _do_.  Defeat pulling at his shoulders as the hours whittled by, even Ford had fallen uncharacteristically silent.  The folks who enter their container – Ringleader, Archer, Samurai, Boy, Porter repeats to himself – there’s no hint of fear in _them_ , not even a glimmer of concern.  They’re whippet thin, wiry muscle, lean frames.  They’re angled faces with no overt sign of softness, and Porter thinks, with a touch of hysteria, the Terminus folks won’t get much dining from the likes of them.

Ford, the soldier - with his bulk, extra weight, his training - should be a match for any of them, yet Porter’s hesitant to make the wager.

Ringleader’s eyes glint in the dark, his smile lingers like a distant threat. “No,” he rasps. Ringleader says it like a truth, the gospel carved on the mountainside.   “They’re gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out.”

It’s Ford who asks the question, who gives voice to what Porter's thinking himself.  “Find out what?”

“They’re screwing with the wrong people.”

He can feel Maggie and Glenn respond, something stirs, sparking with a different kind of energy; reaction of the hindbrain or the timbre of the Ringleader’s voice, the primitive response to an alpha, and not even Porter is immune to it, that's leadership, stirring right there. They’re going to get out of train-car and kill everyone in Terminus, Porter knows, the same way he knows these are the players - Archer, Samurai, Ringleader -  who will see him to DC.

 

 


	3. Trinity

“It’s quite a library,” Michonne says, a little dumbfounded.   

The katana is held loose in one hand, blade low to the floor, almost scraping against the shag carpet.  Rick turns a slow circle, one eyebrow cocked as his gaze sweeps over the titles.  The room is made up as a home-cinema, darkened curtains, big-screen television with surround sound, the two walls leading up to it are decorated with floor to ceiling shelves that run the length of the room, there’s a single leather chair in the rear centre of the room with the leg-rest extended and remote controls lined up on a table beside it.  Daryl reads out the titles one by one, his tone dry. “American Booty. Blown in 60 Seconds. Breast Side Story. Free My Willy – “

“Hugh Hefner wants his collection back,” Rick remarks, sotto voce, and twitches the curtain aside with one finger, peering out onto the street.  He’s about eye-level with the perennials in the garden, a riot of purple and green that have grown out and run wild.  “How come we always find the weird houses?”

Michonne upturns a DVD cover and examines the blurb on the back critically.  “I never understood men’s fascination with porn, honestly wouldn’t you rather be doing it than watching it?”  Daryl blinks, then blinks again.   Michonne tilts her head, predatory.  “No response?”

“That’s a loaded question if I ever heard one. ‘Sides, we watch it when we _can’t_ do it, and we can’t even do that now either.”

“Poor, poor little men.” With a sigh, she lets the cover drop back down and shakes her head.  “I don’t think we’re going to find anything useful down here.”

“An education for Carl, maybe?”

“Shut it,” Rick counters, without heat. It’s easy among them for the moment, quick verbal jabs that mean no harm; Rick raps the back of his knuckles against Daryl’s mid-riff in complaint.

It doesn’t seem to deter him any.  “And I thought my childhood was crap. You have no interest in porn?”

Michonne tilts her head, considering. She checks the remotes one at a time for working batteries.  “I didn’t say that – I just think sex, and men’s attitude toward it – is blown out of proportion.”

“I hesitate to ask.” Rick circles toward the stairs, leaving the den and heading for the kitchen.  The house is cheerful and yellow and makes him want to twitch. Michonne follows him up the staircase, silent on her feet, Daryl a step behind her.  

“It’s misdirection.”

“Okay, now I _have_ to ask,” Daryl mutters.

Michonne laughs.  “Men always act like they’re sex gods – they do – don’t deny it, they talk about it with their pals, swap stories, ramp up their exploits, call women _frigid_ when they don’t come.  But unless you’re a sixteen year old boy, you come only _once_ , then fall into a post coitus stupor and you’re done for the night.”

“Hey – “ Rick protests, throwing a look behind his shoulder.

“You asked.  So my response is this, I’m going to provide you with two words. Multiple.  Orgasms.  Women are Ferraris’, it’s written into our genetic DNA, we’re _meant_ to enjoy it, and _keep_ on enjoying it all night long.  You want to know why men call women frigid, it’s because they can’t keep up, they collapse after the first orgasm when women are still idling in first gear. Women don’t have to talk about it, we already know we can outdistance you, and so you spend all your time bragging about your own exploits because you don’t come close to matching _ours_.” Michonne clicks her tongue once.   “All hail the male cock…over-rated as it is.”

The silence in the room is kind of staggering.

“Well that’s not going to give me a lasting complex or anything,” Daryl mutters.

Rick laughs, low and amused.  Truth is, the only people getting some are Maggie and Glenn, Rick hasn’t touched anyone intimately since Lori died and Daryl’s even more of a mystery.  Rick hasn’t heard guys bragging in the locker room since Shane and the police station, since before being shot.  Michonne smiles, shooting a look over her shoulder as she sizes Daryl up, bright and predatory.    “Don’t worry, sweetheart.  I’ll be gentle.”

Daryl spares a second to flip her off, shaking his head, hair in his eyes and mouth firming, he looks like he’s trying to hide a grin and failing.

“Not sure if you know the meaning of the word gentle,” Rick interrupts.  They clear the house out room by room, then the following house, and the following, without another word spoken about sex.

 

***

 

Problem is, Rick can’t get that conversation out of his head, it lingers, draws hooks into his imagination, he wakes up from half-remembered dreams with his pulse thudding, his skin slick, an ache between his legs and the hazy memory of light and dark entangled, a snapshot of limbs.  He thought he was good in bed – or at least Lori never complained – Rick was a considerate lover, took his time, but he’s thinking about multiple orgasms, about coming, coming, and coming again, a clench of wet heat and hypersensitivity, of pleasure that curled your toes, so many erogenous zones combined until the human body was a strung out nerve.  Even at sixteen he couldn’t manage more than twice. The male refractory period, he thinks, is a downright curse.  He finds himself staring at Michonne, at the muscled curvature of her arms and thighs, the flat planes of her belly, the flare of her hips, the swell of her breast.  It feels mixed up and confused in his head.

She’s a warrior, friend, fighter, Michonne has his back, is good for Carl, he feels like he’s approaching this epiphany from the wrong end of the railway track.  He wants her, and it’s not that tangle of _lust_ he felt for Lori at age seventeen, (moving from wanting to loving) with Michonne, it’s mired in respect first, is shifting into something more.  Rick genuinely likes her – safe, he thinks – there are those who he feels safe with, known, he trusts them with every fibre in his being.  Safe doesn’t mean what it used to, because there is nothing safe about the sharp edge of her katana, the fierce way Michonne fights, how she slips between lethal and teasing.  Physically Michonne is one of the most dangerous people he knows. 

Lori once said this world would wither them all, make their hearts smaller, empty them out – and Rick thinks she was both right and wrong, there are very few people left he cares about in the world, and those small few that occupy it, occupy every last scrap of Rick’s soul. He’s filled to the brim with love, overflowing with it.  He’s utterly remorseless – a dark void - when defending it. 

He didn’t know people could live with such a dichotomy.

Rick watches Michonne with a sense of yearning, of recognising a piece of himself just out of arm’s reach. He doesn’t act, and those nights he wakes up sweaty, pulse racing, arms outflung like a crucifix, Rick will cut his gaze to the left, search for that other missing piece of himself - known, rough at the edges, a mirror to his own proportions - flat chested, hard stomach, rough stubble, wary as a cat.  Michonne’s harmless discussion, his own imagination, has left Rick wanton, suddenly aware he’s missing out on something he used to enjoy, and quite regularly.  He feels parched, his body turning toward the people he knows best, whose sharp edges, copper arrowheads, are accepted and welcome, already an extension of Rick.  

He lies on the ground with his arms outflung, waiting. He doesn’t move from his position, divided into three.

 

 

***

 

“I….I….I will trade you my last knife for a corner of that poncho right about now,” Michonne stutters.

Daryl looks at her, narrow-eyed.  “Lay your wares on the table, then.”

Michonne had thrown it, expertly, forty-five minutes ago, last Rick had seen, that bone-handle knife was protruding from the spine of some grunt who had the mis-judgment of trying to ambush them.“It’s down the roads a bit,” Michonne cajoles. “I’ll keep the poncho warm for you while you fetch it.”

Daryl snorts.  There’s a build-up of snow on the windowsill of the factory they’re currently hiding in and every time they expel a breath they leave a dragon-cloud behind them, wisps of white.  “Remind me why we left Georgia again?”

“You’d never been out of the state before,” Rick tries, ignoring the thought of Ford and his damn mission.  “See the country, he said.”

“Yeah, well, this vacation sucks.”  Daryl raises the poncho over his head, flips the material around until it’s stretched out like a blanket, and then motions Michonne in.  “You too,” he says to Rick.

It’s winter in Washington DC, they’re probably going to freeze to death rather than die by walker-bite, and the horse blanket Daryl wears as a poncho is the most inviting thing he’s ever seen. Rick thinks it’s mighty gentlemanly of him that he doesn’t elbow Michonne in the head trying to get their first.

It’s a little indignant, too many limbs for one, the three of them shoulder to shoulder, trying to stretch that poncho out and keep themselves covered, until they give up and puppy pile on top of one another.  They’re a tangle of arms and legs, bristling weaponry, trying to keep their noses under the covers while a slow infusion of warmth builds up between them.  All of his pieces are gathered close and Rick feels himself relax, turn boneless in the small cocoon they’ve made. It’s easy to touch like this, impossible not to, breathing in the air Michonne expels, his fingers curling into Daryl’s shirt.  It’s easy to drift downward, cup that hand between Daryl’s legs, the material thin under his fingertips; Michonne’s taste, her scent, on the end of Rick’s tongue, kissing her slow and heady.  It’s dangerous, and it’s _them_ , the only home worth fighting for isn’t a building, house or prison; it’s a collection of bones and skin, the personalities contained within. It’s held together, guarded zealously, by katanas, crossbows and guns, and while there’s dark and light aplenty, there is no void between them, there is not and never will be, an outcast.

 


	4. The Eclipse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tumblr snippet

He never played team sports, never knew what it was like to be on a team period, and it might be an odd statement to make but truth is, Daryl doesn’t have a competitive streak in his body. Merle did.  Merle was a showman through and through. Merle lived for that shit.  _How many one-armed push-ups can I do – lay yer money down, bucko - cos I’m about to take this township for a ride._ Or this: _hey, I bet you ten dollars and a fridge full of beer I can land this bullseye.  Bet you can’t get your arrow close, little brother, c’mon, c’mon, show me some greenbacks_.

Merle was good with a rifle, sniper-class, he’d win most of those wagers hands down, but he’d also bet on two snails racing to keep himself occupied, he’d bet on who would die first in the Atlanta group, he’d bet on Michonne not surviving a night after being chased out of Woodbury; he’d bet on the name of a river-creek (Yellow Jacket vs Sawhatchet), and he’d bet on his brother’s undivided loyalty. 

It failed to amuse Daryl.  He was never inclined to gamble on his own ability, he’d never wager on his skill-set with a bow, the certainty of his position relative to the earth, not when the signs he navigated by could blister and cinder into flame, burn out like tinder struck by a lit match.

 _Wuss_ , Merle would mutter.  _You have no faith in yourself, little brother, otherwise you’d ante up_.

Merle was brash.  He was an asshole and an idiot but you couldn’t put a dent in his confidence.  Merle preferred guns over crossbows, motor-bikes over beat-up old trucks; Merle would argue if you said the sky was blue just to hear the sound of his own voice.  The brothers were like the sun and the moon – light years apart in temperament – and yet when folks saw them together they saw them as indistinguishable, so close together they were a merging eclipse, those idiosyncrasies that marked them as individuals lost under a dark star corona.

Or maybe that’s just a vomit-inducing way of saying no one saw Daryl at all.

By the time Rick saves them from the Governor, Daryl’s had over a year orbiting the sky, a solo journey in a decaying field of stars, caught by the gravity pull of Rick’s personality.  It’s a year of being Rick’s right hand; a steady, pale light shining in the dark.  It’s a year of making an impression, etching a home, of being seen without Merle hovering by. He’s happy, maybe for the first time in his life, Daryl’s content in this world of questionable shadows.

Merle blazes across the landscape like the first ray of sunshine, blinding and bright, overwhelming in his ferocity.  Rick raises a hand against him, silhouetted against the sun and Daryl takes a gamble – the first gamble in his life – hoping the year with Rick, the friendship they forged, had cemented his own worth; that however destructive and bright his brother shone, however much of an  _impression_  Merle had made, that Rick could still see Daryl’s pale worth, that for once, he’s not eclipsed by his brother, rendered unseen.

“What can I say, no him, no me,” Daryl says, steadfast and firm, because they’re  _brothers,_ they’re day and night, irrevocably connected and Daryl won’t abandon Merle. He gambles, gambles that Rick will relent.  He gambles, his  _die_  ready to cast, hoping Rick will see  _him_  first, and not his older brother.  It’s an odd thing to say: but it doesn’t hurt when he sees the rejection; the slight shake to Rick’s head; where their concern for Merle’s future sins outstrips Daryl’s past contributions.  It doesn’t hurt when you expect nothing less. “It was always Merle and I before this,” Daryl says, and in this too, he sounds steadfast.   People see Merle first and always have.  It’s simply the way it’s always been.

“You know what I think?” Merle crows as they move through the brush, the two of them alone again and so far away.  “I may have lost my hand, but you lost your sense of direction.”

Sceptical, Daryl says. “We’ll see.”

“Wanna bet?”

“I ain’t betting _nothing_. It’s a body of water.” He can’t stop the irritation from entering his voice; Daryl’s already gambled once today, and in the process, lost everything he held dear; his pockets emptied by a cosmic joke; because his brother pushed and pushed and pushed everyone to their limits, because Merle could cinder the ground to ash, never fully cognisant of his destructive bent. “Why does everything have to be a competition with you?”  And like most of Daryl’s thoughts, it circles back to Rick; why couldn't you try?

“Hey, take it easy little brother, just trying to have some fun," Merle replies, dismissive. "There's no need to get your panties in a bundle.”

 


	5. Idle conversations

“A drinking game,” Daryl says, reluctantly.  He’s sprawled on the ground, back propped against a brick wall with his legs stretched out in front of him, boots digging a trench into the ground.  Daryl exhales a smoke cloud when he adds.  “One of those high-school to early frat games…you know the ones, take a sip if you’ve never?”

Rick nods; he’s sitting beside Daryl, looking toward the stars, head tilted upward and the column of his throat exposed.  Daryl can make out the curve of a smile, a little sad and a little wistful as Rick shakes his head.  “She wanted to play _games_ with you?  Well, that was never going to end well.”

Understatement of the year, Daryl thinks ruefully.  “I kept on thinking about Patrick, fourteen years old and fiddling with his Lego blocks…yeah, I get why, I do…but, what you said: wasn’t going to end well.”

“It didn’t stop you from playing though.”

Sitting cross-legged with a bottle of moonshine between them – because Beth wanted a hard drink – slaughtering an entire golf-course of walkers because Beth didn’t want to stay still where they were safe; playing games because Beth wanted to talk and feel like a normal teenager for once, wanted to forget the truth of their reality.  “Man, she’d been crying all day,” Daryl said softly.  She saw her father beheaded before her very eyes; and trying to keep Beth alive, content – her needs answered – hell, Daryl would have played any damn game she wanted, or slaughtered a hundred walkers.  He scrubs at his eyes, lets his head thump against the wall.  She was entitled to that grief, and when Daryl couldn’t manage his own, couldn’t even name it over the lump in his throat, he knew it was easier to focus on her, what Beth wanted, because it was less painful that way.

“She’s a kid.  If ever there was a way of highlighting it, then playing a _high school_ game was it.” Daryl had tried; but his answers were monosyllabic at best; uncomfortable with the circumstances, ready to climb the walls with her poorly disguised assumptions, her perky questions.

“If she’s out there alone,” Rick corrects softly.  “She won’t be a kid any longer.”  She’ll grow up, or she’ll be dead, there’s no two ways about it.  Rick lets his knee bang against Daryl’s and zips up his jacket to the neck, keeping the warmth in, lets his own confession fill the silence.  “Patrick weirded me out, I kept on comparing him to Carl, and a part of me thought he’s fourteen, a child, he can play Lego, he should enjoy it while he can, stay sheltered; and a part of me kept watching Carl, all the things he’s done…and I felt relieved.  I don’t know which emotion’s worse – the innocence or lack of it - or if wanting both is possible…but, I think I’d kill the innocence to watch them grow up, to know Carl’s capable.”

Beth wanted to play games to ignore her new reality, like some tumblr kid over-sharing every damn detail of their lives – Daryl wanted to focus on Beth to ignore his own reality, like every other damn adult, you focus on someone _else_ to push through it - and maybe the end means weren’t so different, but the coping mechanism employed was staggered at the different ages in a person’s life.  Daryl had felt ancient beside her, called her a ‘girl’ because that’s what Beth was to him, but she’s going to survive, because Daryl had done his damndest to make sure she would, and they’re going to find her, because they don’t leave their people behind.

He tilts into Rick, feels the solidness of his shoulder, the miracle of his warmth, and Daryl knows he’s done with giving up on things. He won’t give up on Rick again, ever – and if Daryl taught Beth how to survive, then he needs to thank her now, for teaching him hope exists – that it can be found in the most unexpected places, that it can be returned to you.  Squirming like a cat bent on finding a way under the covers, Daryl repositions himself under an arm-pit, better to press his cheek against the rough material of Rick’s jacket.  Rick accommodates him, draping an arm over his chest, hauling Daryl close.  Easy in his company, Daryl closes his eyes and breathes out; feels himself relax toward slumber, Rick carding slow fingers through his hair. 

“I’m glad I’ve got you back,” Daryl says, drowsily into the night - he doesn't need to play a 'game' to make this confession - it's truth and it's home to him, raw in its honesty because Daryl was lost without Rick.

Lips press against his forehead, Rick’s mouth curves into a smile, intimate and small.  “I’m glad I have you.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU piece - or that one time Rick wasn't in a coma at the start of the epidemic.
> 
> Shane/Rick/Daryl.
> 
> Knowing me, this probably won't go anywhere, and I probably won't have time to finish it, so I'm throwing it in here for safekeeping

Shane isn’t a quiet sleeper.  His breath rasps inside his chest, sub-vocalisations that cycle through REM.  He’ll kick out, twist about.  His legs free-wheel like Lance fucking Armstrong - riding the home-stretch of Tour de France. Sleep, Rick thinks, is the parting curtain for Shane. 

It’s the only glimpse of vulnerability Rick gets because when awake, Shane’s thirteen miles of rough road with a foul tongue. Rick stirs at the first crack of dawn, exhausted from the nightly cycling. He wipes a forearm over his face and shakes his partner awake. “Hey, c’mon now, you’ve won that race, buddy.”

And for all his midnight antics, his restless dreams, Shane awakens easily, groping at the space between them.  “Rick?”

“Here.” His hand shifts, a casual stretch toward reassurance.  The patrol car is crammed full – every weapon they could find from King’s County shoved into the rear.  The passenger seat is laid flat, the best position for sleeping in and the air inside has gone stale overnight. The doors are locked. Windows sealed up tight. On a strip of dusty highway, Rick shakes his partner to alertness – “We’ve company,” he warns – and watches Shane jerk upright. 

In the rear view mirror, a dark line blurs in the morning haze, the distant rumble of vehicles fast approaching.

“Jesus,” Shane breathes out, and cranes his head around: “Where you think they’re headed?”

“Evacuation centre or a base,” Rick ventures, watching the mirror:  “Atlanta, maybe?”

The convoy doesn’t stop.  It doesn’t even slow down, jeep after truck after Humvee, a smear of pale faces glimpsed out of the back of a transport vehicle as they hurtle by. 

They sit still and watch it pass, the tension in the police car gone thick. 

Shane has a white-knuckled grip on his shot-gun. He wipes his other hand over the back of his neck, an old tell, a habit he’s never broken. 

When things went sour, K.C.S.D had orders to throw their lot in with FEMA, maintain order against the increasing panic and flash riots plaguing America – a hold-the-line mentality before society went to hell in a hand-basket – some of the guys at the station ran – shirked their duties and packed their families up and left – strung their numbers out too thin, but Rick wouldn’t ignore the deputy badge when there was still an authority to answer to and Shane wouldn’t budge so long as Rick was being mule-headed about it.

They had orders to follow the chain of police command - then they had orders to provide any support necessary to FEMA - and _then_ they had orders to obey the instructions of the National Guard; some time after that, they stopped listening to orders. When the rifles turned on _living_ civilians, when those first shots rang out at a hospital, Rick wasn’t inclined to obey the uppity-ups and he sure as hell didn’t trust the military.

Shane (who stayed with Rick when most of the department ran, who ignored his own better judgement)  - would look at him sometimes with wary disbelief. _You hung around for this, man?  Jesus, we could have been in the hills by now._

They watch the last Humvee roar by. The gunner turns a black M2HB-QCB to track them, the barrel long as a yardstick, _Ma Deuce_ written lovingly on the side.  The gunner’s face is hidden behind wraparound sunglasses, chequered scarf pulled loose around his neck.  He mimes squeezing the trigger with his index finger, taunt, or a warning. 

In return, Shane flips the bird.  “Asshole.”

Rick turns the key over in the ignition. “Bosun County’s close by. We’ll check there.”

Shane squirms in his seat.  “Ain’t nobody in charge.  The world’s a shambles, and buddy, it’s better to lay with the wolves than keep searching.  Military experience and heavy artillery isn’t something to sniff at.”

“King’s County fell,” Rick says sharply. Each word whistles between his teeth, ominous as a falling bomb.  His hand doesn’t shake on the steering wheel and he won’t look at the convoy. Rick can feel the flash-fire of betrayal crawl over his nape. 

There’s a hair-line fracture between having enough numbers to protect a group; and being small enough in those same numbers to _sustain_ a group. The convoy didn’t look set to invite strangers, their accounting books full, and Rick jerks the car around angrily.  

“ _Screw_ the fucking army.”

In Bosun County they siphon off gas from an abandoned Buick.  Shane guards the perimeter as Rick sucks and spits, a rubber hose clamped between his teeth.

In the first haze of sunshine Rick thinks he ought to apologise, but he can’t find the words for it.  People still band together, they have to - somewhere they have to - and Rick can still choose whom to align with. There are still choices to be made – there has to be choices.  But Shane might have left Kings County earlier if it weren’t for Rick’s sense of obligation.  Shane could be someplace safe, holed up in the hills with a bunch of civilians, fishing for frogs or checking the CV, and that’s something Rick can’t dismiss off-hand. “There’s a Sherriff’s office here. Might be supplies. Guns.  Spare ammo.  Food.” He rubs the sweat off his forehead, knocking the brim of his hat askew and fixes Shane with a look. “We might find people.”

“Yeah,” Shane agrees.  He sights down the line of his weapon.  At the far end of the street, a walker trips into view. “Might be all kind of surprises hidden.” He fires, almost carelessly. The retort echoes in the empty street. Shane lets the shotty slip, muzzle pointed toward the earth, and struts toward the Sherriff’s Department. From the back, his frame is a perfect, powerful, V.  Shane’s done away with his uniform, his clothing heavy duty and designed to last. Over his left shoulder, he calls out: “Let’s go, brother. Waste not want not.”  

The walker is too far away to make out the gender.

Ammunition is a concern; namely, their dwindling supply of it.  “Yeah,” Rick echoes, and bites down on the sarcasm.  “So you say.”

 

 

***

 

They enter the police station through the rear door.

The basic layout and design is a reversal of King’s County, and they steal through the corridors with confidence.  The weapons room, when they find it, is swept bare. Every prayer Rick had uttered - every silent bargain he made with god, every plea - gone unanswered: the rifle rack stands empty, not a single cartridge to be spotted, there’s not even a discarded shell rolling on the floor; even the neat row of taser’s in their two by two pigeon-holes are gone. 

Shane kicks the wall hard, cracking the plaster. “Fucking great,” he quips. “Awesome job, coming here.”

Rick spares the room a glance.  He thinks about the convoy travelling toward Atlanta, Shane’s building frustration, the easy way he had reached for Rick in the morning, how Shane had stayed, then turns on his heel. He finds the evidence room three doors down, opposite the male toilets.  Rick slams his shoulder against the plywood, and again, until the lock gives.  He staggers under the sudden give, knees folding until he catches himself on the doorhandle.

The evidence room’s a cluttered mess - old cases and new trials pending - like King’s County it hasn’t been reorganised in years. He finds three kilos of amphetamines bagged and tagged, and further down the line, a 9mm Uzi lying on its side, a half clip of ammunition in a separate bag pushed almost out of sight. “Eureka,” he breathes out, and takes it all back, every silent curse he hurled at his maker.   

It’s the small things, the little inconsequential’s, that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Rick tears the plastic bag apart with his teeth – _M.Kurral’s murder trial, 07/08/2010_ dated on one side – and reassembles the weapon.  He double-checks the safety, then scrutinizes the rest of the shelving, searching for more.  More murder weapons.  More confiscated goods. More of anything, absolutely _anything_ they can use.

From behind, Shane says: “Can you believe this shit?” The brief spat of anger has gone, his voice steady.  Shane surveys the collected evidence, then pulls down a crossbow, stashed on the uppermost shelf, and hefts the weight.  “You want to go Robin Hood on these freaks?”

“My cousin used to hunt with a crossbow,” Rick offers idly. There are scratches on the limb and stock but the cam is oiled smooth, the string and cable run taut as piano wire, the paint on the trigger worn clean.  It’s a working weapon, Rick notes, it’s been used well and now lies under lock and key.  Rick examines it briefly.   “They’re not as easy as they appear.”

Shane snorts, a brief glimmer from the past returning as his grin turns cheeky.  “Trigger and aim, baby, not much different in my book.”  Shane shoulders the crossbow and hitches his thumb toward the ceiling, his face going soft.  “Check upstairs?”

Weapons in the watch-house are unlikely but cops are notorious for stashing away food.  Rick pockets a bowie knife, the edge honed to razor sharpness, and swings the Uzi over his shoulder by the strap.  He draws his own weapon, favouring the colt in close confines, and nods. “Yeah, I think it’s best we do.”

 

 

 

Upstairs, the stink is pervasive.  Rick breathes from his mouth, moving further into the gloom of the watch-house.  Typically there aren’t many windows in a police station to throw out light and the electricity is long gone.  The room is cast in blurred shadows, in violets and swelling bruises.

The building sighs.  It breathes out on a low groan. 

“Creepy-crawlies are here,” Shane intones. He doesn’t say more. Shane might shoot his mouth off when frustrated but he’s a firearms instructor first.  He goes terse before the bullets start to fly.

Simply, Rick says.  “It’s the cells.”

Shane grimaces and turns away.  “You wanna deal with it then?  Because I ain’t.  It’s a waste of energy.”

Rick could leave it be – Shane’s right, it’s not as if the walkers are going anywhere - but there’s a thrum of injustice stiffening his spine.  Rick wonders who ran this joint, if they qualified as a human being?  He wonders after the staff bolted if the people incarcerated were already dead, or if in the town’s panic, they were overlooked?

“Yeah,” he says, brittle.  “I’ll handle it.”  He pulls the bowie knife free, because Rick has no intention of wasting ammunition, and steps towards the cells. 

“You do that,” Shane adds, sotto voce. His partner swings left, pulling out stationary drawers as he goes.  He finds the station keys at the Sheriff’s desk and tosses them to Rick. “Have fun, y’all.”

Rick snatches the keys mid-air.  He watches Shane make a beeline for the kitchen then heads in the opposite direction.  At the end of a long corridor awaits four cells. 

The facility’s larger than King’s county, which held a maximum of two - a drunk tank and a holding cell for more serious offences - Bosun has a bigger county court, serving nearby towns as well as its own, and the larger capacity reflects it.   “Hullo?” Rick calls, hesitantly. “An’body here?”

A walker clangs against the steel bars, smashing his face against metal. 

His hands grope for Rick’s sleeve, eye popping from the impact.  Rick jerks away. He stays firmly in the centre of the corridor as he moves inside, heart skipping a beat.  Cell two lies empty, the door ajar. At the rear, cell three holds two walkers, male, snarling and reaching through the gaps in the bars. The floor’s damp.

Rick pauses, frowning as he stares at the carnage of the fourth cell. 

It looks like one hell of a fight took place. A body’s sprawled on the ground, half of its face caved in.  Maggots inch through its flesh in pale ringlets.  Bunk and mattress have been overturned. The tap has been torn off its mantle, the slow trickle of water the source of the pervading dampness. Another body, tucked further into the corner, is curled away on its side.  Decomposition of the first means Rick can’t tell if it turned or not _before_ being brained, and the second corpse is manoeuvred in all the wrong directions. He can’t get a clear look.

The cell door is locked tight. 

Rick feels his lip curl away from his teeth. The features to the first body are mutilated but the uniform is achingly familiar. The keys jangle in his palm as he unlocks the cell, inching into the room to check the first body over. The holster is empty and the utility belt is stripped of equipment; cuffs, flashlight, penknife, and the extra ammo gone.  The star on its chest is black with encrusted blood.  Rick sits on his heels, stumped for a logical explanation, and studies the man’s nametag.  “Okay… Okay then.  Rest i– “

A weight smashes into him, a blur of movement and dirty leather.

Rick reels backward, knocked clean onto his ass, and feels his wrist almost snap when a boot stomps onto his gun-hand. The colt skitters out of his grip.

Rick bites back a howl of agony.  He pulls his wrist close, and kicks out with both heels. The walker flies off him. It hits the cell wall, and comes straight back again, in less than a second.   Rick scrabbles like a crab and its only then he gets his first clear look at his attacker.

_Not_ a walker registers - the second ‘body’ in the cell registers - then a fist crashes into Rick’s jawbone. 

Desperate for the door, the stranger scrambles over the top of him bodily.  

Rick lies flat.  He hooks one hand over a flying boot and trips him, letting the man topple face first onto the concrete.  Rick squirms over like an eel, turning on his stomach; he locks one hand in the man’s leather belt and jerks him down, torso to torso. They scrabble on the floor like schoolboys; furious and eerily quiet.  The prisoner doesn’t pull his punches.  There’s a fury to his movements but however long he’s been in here, he’s half-starved because of it.  A rusty tap the only source of survival.  Rick isn’t aiming to hurt, but it’s harder and harder not to when his opponent just doesn’t care.  “Quit it! Goddammit,” Rick spits, and then louder: “Quit it!”  He’s kneed in the groin; dirty tactics and not giving a shit. Wheezing, Rick’s inclined to just shoot the prick.  “Sonofabitch!” He yelps. He gets a decent arm lock.  Rick torques the elbow then wrenches it high, threatening to dislocate the shoulder. The man rolls with it, crazy flexible or not feeling the pain, and Rick drops the hold when the man darts a punch toward his throat.  His vision spots. His trachea flexes inward with the impact, and for one horrible, sustained moment, Rick can’t draw a single breath.  Dirty blonde hair and narrow eyes, the man’s expression turns feral with triumph. Lurching away from Rick, he gropes for the discarded colt.  

Rick makes to grab him again - to say wait, don’t shoot - but his whole body has seized from the jab.  Angel wings, Rick thinks, disjointedly, who the fuck as the gall to wear angel wings? 

“Asshole,” the man rasps.  His whole body is trembling - from adrenalin, starvation - from anger or grief both.  “You fucking assholes.”

Unlike Shane Rick’s never taken his uniform off but he thinks he won’t have time to regret the decision now.  Rick’s own colt is aimed squarely at him.   The man’s slumped opposite on both knees, pointing Rick’s weapon, when Shane steps into the cell and clocks him cold. 

The colt goes off, a scream like a banshee as the bullet ricochets. 

Shane throws himself clear.  

Rick covers his head with both hands and presses his face against the wet floor.  His opponent, sprawled senseless, is slumped beside him, their fingertips almost touching. In age, he could stand on either side of Rick, there’s something indeterminate about his looks, chest heaving, most of his ribs prominent.  He’s dirt stained, blood-stained, and appears more dead than alive.

“So,” Shane says, when the bullet pings into silence. “I see you found someone.”

 

 

***

 

 

There first argument goes something like this:

“We ain’t leaving him in the cell.  Period.”

“Are you listening to yourself?  In case you haven’t noticed, Rick, you have a daisy chain of bruises around your damn neck.  He meant to kill you.”

The fight feels distant now, recalled only in flashes. He knows Shane dragged him out of the cell by the shirt-collar, he knows Shane locked the door behind them both, cursing a blue streak.  He knows the soft press of Shane’s fingertips, aligned on either side of his nose as he straightens the break, the distinct smell of peppermint. “No,” Rick says slowly. “He tried to get past me. I tripped him.”

Shane’s eyebrows are expressive: they convey much, not the least of all is a healthy range of scepticism:  “And nearly landed on the body of a dead cop, or did you forget that part?”

“I haven’t forgotten.”  Rick cuts his gaze upward, irritated.  Nonplussed, Shane chews on his gum. “Gimme some of that.”

“You won’t like it.  It’s nicotine.”  Nevertheless Shane squats down beside him.  He holds up a single piece, then like an asshole, moves it left to right in a wide arc.  Rick snatches it before his vision can blur again.  Shane frowns and cups his jaw.  “Found it in a Deputy’s desk, nicotine gum and a bar of Hershey’s, there’s some grade A cuisine right here,” Shane says, idly. “He clocked you a good one, huh?”

Rick’s never been immune to Shane’s physicality. How for all of his size and breadth Shane can slip into his personal space, take ownership of the lapses and gaps between them.  Legs between thighs - the warmth of another human being pressed close - and a touch achingly tender, as he cleans the blood from Rick’s face. “Not as hard as the pistol-whipping you gave him.”

“The asshole’s not locked up because of his looks.” Rick doesn’t react – he _doesn’t_ – but there’s something sharp, attentive, about the glance Shane throws. It’s too knowing, and there’s too much history between them to pretend ignorance.  Shane lets his hand drop away, brushing against exposed collar bones, the wet material of Rick’s sodden shirt. “He’s in there for a reason. Chances are he’s one of the fucking looters you and I spent all our time guarding against. He’s a thief.  Or worse, a murderer.”

“Well, why don’t we ask him, ‘sides, you said you wanted to hook up with people.”

“Yeah…given the choices I think I preferred the army.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
